Ebb and Flow

What do you intend to do?
The enquiry delivered like a helpful slap
is designed to bring me to my senses,
your hand left hanging there
in case more medicine is required.
The bow wave of your breath
like a crashing surf, roars
and then is numbed silence,
I count to seven awaiting the next explosion.
Will you be alright?
More gentler, calmer water now, damaged,
your voice a useless bloodstained sling
offering support but delivering none,
my purposeful stride self-moderates
into a funereal step, pause, step.
Do I go or do I stay?


© Graham Sherwood 09/2013

Redux 2

Twenty years ago we lay on camp beds here,
at midnight on the bumpy grass,
supine, our saucered eyes scanning a star map sky,
fleeting Perseids teased our stare
our friends proclaiming, keeping score
“there’s one”.

Now everyone has gone
and we are back to heal the past,
with apologetic sticking plaster vows,
but they are gone
and will not return to hear confession.

So here we are, an age past,
to offer ourselves up, naked once again,
holding hands, awaiting
cosmic teleportation or redemption,
both afraid neither will come, or worse
only one of us will ascend to the stars.

A bristle of a breeze feathers our bodies
and makes us more afraid
until the balm of mild darkness returns
and we set off to cross the rubicon.


© Graham Sherwood 8/2013

Maison Mere

This house has many visitors who come to pretend,
to stumble through a new tongue
and try to feel comfortable about doing very little.
Undoubtedly there have been liaisons here,
spurious affairs and perhaps conception
and an end to matters too I think.
The landscape is wiry stubble,
the serene corduroy of vines
and the beautiful adolescence of sunflowers.
All watch the goings-on
with idle disdain in their broken tranquillity.
For her part, for the maison is definitely female
she holds all her visitors safely within sturdy walls
in non-judgemental sanctity,
a young capable chatelaine who has aged gracefully
to become a respected and much loved matriarch,
who still keeps secrets, mops tears and feeds her charges
Themselves still believing another life is possible.



© Graham Sherwood 8/2013

Our Perigee

(The point when two objects orbiting each other appear closest).

There was always the feeling that something might happen
This last year, your movements have been gradual but consistent,
your moods like the weather, difficult, capricious and unpredictable.
But when you shine, oh! there is a radiance where clouds are banned
and stars become superfluous for clear sight.
I saw you dance on the solstice, a pagan, gypsy temptress swirl,
moving ever closer, exerting a barely hidden mesmeric draw,
your youth forever beautiful, pert and daring.
My old eyes widen at the possibilities as you settle into view.
So there you are, beguiling me, naked and ripe
a fleeting chance to feast upon your nubile form.
Tomorrow I’ll be older and you younger still.


© Graham Sherwood 6/2013

Southwold

(Very old pearl of the East Coast).

My mother would have liked Southwold.
Seaside how it used to be, gentile, old money,
apart from the Aston Martins and the Bentleys
squeezed cheek-by-jowl in the off-prom terraced streets.
On the bank holiday, sun cracking the flag
she is breathless, wheezing under the strain
of yummy mummies, energetic Rafas and Jocastas
who picnic on her greens.
Come Tuesday, she is alone again,
a widow, abandoned, bereft and peering from empty windows
until the next weekend visit, with tea on the pier
carefully ignoring the Sizewell glitter ball
that fades into the approaching fret.

© Graham Sherwood 6/2013

Buzz

(A study in listening)

A numbing, soft, uncomfortable crush,
the white noise of night’s silence
that the brain tricks into an urgent wind,
a balmy tinnitus, a mausoleum
from whence escape is futile,
other than to further hostile desolations.
Alone in my shrinking room,
where even the reassuring monotone tock
is lost amongst this velvet hiss,
or thrust in the heft of the commuting faceless,
still the lumbering drone of spectral noise.
There is no such state as solace, silence, sanctuary,
just the near imperceptible swish of consciousness
from which we writhe, but none can abscond.


© Graham Sherwood 6/2013

Knights

(Little boys will be boys).

Such then is your magic world
of wooden staves and special powers,
for bravery, chivalry and derring-do,
each tree stump a task
each bridge enchanted,
so too the stepping-stones
crooked in the fathomless trickling brook.
You ride with knights
their shirts tugged out,
fresh bloodied knees
ripe ruddy cheeks,
who follow you
through direst scrapes
to Avalon’s halcyon throne
and feasts of biscuits, milk and rest.

© Graham Sherwood 5/2013